


FFVII Folk Tales: Jenova and the Evil Queen

by ixieko



Series: FFVII Folk Tales [18]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Body Horror, Folklore, Gen, Original Character(s), Weird Pagan Gods, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale from which Gast Faremis, probably, took the name Jenova.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FFVII Folk Tales: Jenova and the Evil Queen

Once upon a time, when the trees were taller, the seas were deeper and the grass was greener, a small kingdom stood on the northernmost shore of the northernmost continent. The king of that land was married to a woman who was said to be the most beautiful woman of all North. Happy they were, but, although the queen was healthy, they didn’t have any children, and no spell, no medicine could help them.

The king had a sister who ran away at young age and married a woodlander and had a daughter with him, a young girl named Jenova. They lived in a nearby village and were happy, until the man went to the forest and didn’t come back. The wife died soon after, and the girl was left alone in the whole world. The king never had forgiven his sister for running off, but nevertheless he could not abandon Jenova, and took her in as one of the palace servants. Quiet she was and modest, and worked hard, thankful for the roof above her head and the food her uncle gave her.

The queen soon took a dislike in her husband’s niece, for she was afraid that in absense of his own children, the king would make the girl an heir to his kingdom. She kept on tasking Jenova with the most dirty, unpleasant and boring work she could think of, hoping that she would get tired of it and run away, but the girl did all of it without ever complaining, and that made the queen hate her even more.

Once, in the middle of winter, when the bay was frozen and the roads were covered in snow, an old hag came into the palace and met with the queen and told her, “I could help you and your king conceive a child, but it can be done only with blood magic, and it needs a lot of blood of your husband or his close kin.”  
“Will the blood of his sister’s daughter be of any use?” the queen asked, and the hag said yes.

Then, the queen sent for Jenova and told her to travel to an abandoned watchtower to the east of the city and bring hawthorn berries that grew there and were believed to have some magic power in them. The girl put on her worn-out coat and her mother’s warm shawl and fur boots, and went to the watchtower. While she went on foot, stopping often to look at frozen brooks and trees covered in beautiful white frost, the queen and the hag climbed into a cart drawn by a chocobo, and took the longer road around, and arrived to the tower before the girl did. When Jenova showed up, the witch put a sleeping spell on her and took her blood, and then they locked the girl in a room at the very top of the tower, because the spell was to be repeated every month until the child was sixteen years old, and every time the blood was required to perform it.

After that, the queen and the hag returned to the palace, and the witch made the concoction and read the spell, and soon the queen conceived, and by the middle of the next autumn she gave birth to a boy. The old witch lived in the castle and became queen’s most trusted companion, and every month they travelled to the abandoned tower and took Jenova’s blood. All that time the girl was deep in a magic dream, and in her dream she was with her parents, in their house, and she was happy.

But once, a tiny bird, a dark-cheeked northern sparrow, flew into the room and sat on her pillow and chirped, “Chip-chireep, wake up, Jenova!”  
The girl stirred, but didn’t wake up, and the bird chirped again, “Chip-chireep, Jenova, wake up! Your mother sent me, for you are in danger here! Chip-chireep, girl, wake up!”  
Jenova then woke up, and stretched, and looked around, and said, “Good morning, tiny bird! Where am I? How long I was asleep?”  
The sparrow chirped and said, “You are locked in an abandoned watchtower, chip-chireep, and you were asleep for a year and a half.”  
“But who locked me here?” The girl asked, and the sparrow told her about the witch and the spell.  
“The door can be unlocked only from the outside,” the bird said, “and you need to escape before the witch returns, for she would put you into even deeper sleep, and then even I would not be able to wake you up.”  
“But how can I do it?” The girl cried. “Can you open the door? Can you call for help?”  
“No,” the sparrow said, “for I was created by your mother’s spirit and my time is almost up, but I can give you a spell that could help.”  
And the bird taught her an ancient spell, more ancient than even the oldest Sky Gems, and then he bid her farewell and wished her luck, and vanished into thin air.

Jenova then took a sharp knife that lay on the bedside table (the witch used that knife to slice the girl’s wrists to take the blood), and cut off her braid, and read the incantation, and the braid turned into a yellow oriole that asked her, “What help do you need, Mother?”  
The girl told the bird to fly into the palace and tell the king what happened to her, and the oriole flew away. Day had passed, and night, and another day, but the bird had not returned.

On the third day Jenova took the knife again, and cut off her left hand, and read the incantation, and her hand turned into a squirrel. The girl told her to run to the palace and tell the king what had happened. The squirrel left, but, just like the bird, she never returned, and help never arrived.

Two days later Jenova cut off her left foot, and read the incantation, and her foot turned into a brown weasel. The girl told her to go to the palace, and the weasel left, but never returned.

Another day passed, and Jenova took the knife and cut off her right foot, and read the incantation, and her foot turned into a small black cat. Jenova wanted to send her again to the palace, but then she thought better and sent the cat into the village instead, to her childhood friend  who lived there.

The day passed, and the night came, and her friend came to the tower and called out, “Jenova! Jenova! Are you there?”  
“Yes, I’m here! Please, help me!” The girl answered, and the boy ran to the top of the tower and began to pick the lock.

The queen and the witch knew that Jenova was seeking help, because they intercepted her messengers, and in that precise moment they arrived at the tower. But Jenova spotted them through the window, and before they could attack the boy and kill him, she quickly cut off her left leg up to her knee, and read the incantation, and turned it into a big owl and told her to attack the witch. And as the owl attacked, the other animals arrived too, having escaped from the cages where the witch had put them.

The boy opened the lock and ran to Jenova, picked her up and carried her outside, where the owl, the weasel, the cat and the oriole were battling the evil witch. There, Jenova asked the boy to hold her up, and she read the incantation again, and the four animals merged together and turned into a small flying dragon who breathed fire and incinerated both the witch and the evil queen on the spot.  
Then the dragon flew to her Mother, and she read another incantation, and the dragon merged with her, and her hand and her legs were restored.

After that she returned to the palace and told the king everything that had happened. He hadn’t believed her at first and even put her into jail, but when the new moon came and the old witch’s blood spell wasn’t renewed (for no one else knew it), his son turned into a mindless zombie and the king was forced to kill him. That loss weighted heavy on king’s mind, and he retired, leaving the kingdom to Jenova, and she ruled it for many years and lived happily until she passed away.

_(From “The tales of North”, Evan Marius, 1932)_

* * *

 

“Jenova, huh? Sounds like a Cetra name to me. What do you think, Grim?”  
“Hm, maybe.”  
“Then, probably, the tale is based on a real story? What if the Cetra really knew that kind of magic? Just imagine it! Ah, if we only could find out how they did it!”  
“Seriously, Gast? You think that these, uh, spells for turning body parts into animals could be real? Come on, you aren’t _that_ drunk.”  
“But, Grim, it’s not only in this tale. Actually, I saw it several times in tales from all over the world. For example, one of the tribes of the Valuhi archipelago has the White Dragon god who can detach his penis and-”  
“Wh… Why?”  
“Oh, well, it’s a whole new story, Grim. You see, that god has two wives, one is called Dawn and the other Dusk, and they could not bear him children, that’s why he walks into human houses and impregnates the women. His children are easily recognizable, because they’re white-”  
“By white you mean light-skinned?”  
“No. Albino, actually. The tribe has a really unusually high occurrence of albinos, approximately one of fifty children, compared to one in twenty thousand in general population.”  
“That’s really high.”  
“Yes, I think the reason is their isolation from the outside world. But, returning to our white god, the people of the tribe believe that his white children are to be given to him, so if a white child is born, they take them to the altar and leave them there, and believe that the god’s wives take care of his children.”  
“While in fact the children are eaten by wild animals.”  
“Most likely. But again, about the god. His wives became so tired of raising all the children that they taught the human women to ward the doors so that the god couldn’t come through. The god didn’t like it very much, so he learned to detach his penis and send it in through a hole in the roof (which they make to let out the smoke). There are also wards to make this hole invisible for the god. The most interesting part is, the households where wives don’t use all the possible wards has even higher occurence of albino births.”  
“How much higher?”  
“Ten times.”  
“And… any explanations, aside from folk tales about white dragon gods or whatever?”  
“None, as far as I know. There are a team from Midgar University working there right now, but I don’t know if they found anything.”  
“Well… You almost convinced me here, Gast. Maybe there _are_ something true in all these tales, after all.”


End file.
